Breakages in chromosomes in mammalian evolution have occurred at preferred rather than random sites as long thought, and many of the sites are involved in human cancers, an international team of 25 scientists has discovered.

The researchers, reporting in the July 22 issue of the journal Science, also found that chromosomal evolution has accelerated, based on the rate of breakages and reorganization, since the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

In a study l

NHGRI researchers contribute dog data to groundbreaking study

An international team that includes researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has discovered that mammalian chromosomes have evolved by breaking at specific sites rather than randomly as long thought – and that many of the breakage hotspots are also involved in human cancer.
In a study published in the July 22 issue of the journal Scien

Letter: Nuclear weapons are another post-communist health hazard BMJ Volume 331, p 237

Nuclear weapons in various European countries, particularly Russia, pose a serious threat to health, argues a letter in this week’s BMJ.

Recent estimates are that Russia alone has 7,800 operational nuclear warheads – some of which are on high alert status says Nick Wilson, a public health lecturer and member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Their cont

New knowledge can improve current therapies and shape new ones Researchers have determined how metabolic pathways differ between healthy and failing hearts. Normally, a heart derives its energy from a balance of fatty acids and carbohydrates, specifically glucose.

But Dr. Gary Lopaschuk, a pharmacologist and professor in the University of Alberta Department of Pediatrics, and his colleagues in the U.S. and Italy have found that during the early stages of heart failure, the heart use

Postmenopausal women may significantly reduce tooth loss by controlling their periodontal disease, according to a study in the Journal of Periodontology.

Researchers from the University at Buffalo, School of Dental Medicine did a follow-up evaluation on 106 postmenopausal women and found that during an average of 11.7 years follow-up, 57.5 percent of the participants lost at least one tooth.

“We found that alveolar bone loss (the bone that holds the tooth in the mou

Core-needle biopsy guided by CT scans or ultrasound appears to be an effective way to obtain tumor samples diagnosis of pediatric solid tumors, say St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital researchers

Inserting biopsy needles through the skin appears to be a safe and reliable alternative to surgery for obtaining diagnostic samples of a suspected solid tumor in children, according to results of a study by investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The technique, ca

The Leica M844 F40, premium surgical microscope for ophthalmology,
welcomes a new member to the family

Leica Microsystems is continuing the market launch of the Leica M844 F40 with another highlight. Just like its older sister, which made its international debut in April, the Leica M844 F19 impresses the user thanks to the same first-class optics (M844). The new F19 stand is equipped with high-precision mechanical brakes which ensure homogeneous movements and stable positioning

Research published in Nature (21 July) will outline for the first time the stem cell origin of the structure of the neck and shoulders in vertebrates. The scientists believe that instead of groups of stem cells creating the skeletal and muscle structure separately they actually appear to make them together as a sort of ‘composite’. This could have significant implications for clinical medicine and our understanding of vertebrate evolution.

Scientists at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedic

On any given day, tens of thousands of biologists around the globe run DNA sequences of unknown function through a lightning-fast online algorithm called BLAST – typically submitting 200 to 400 base pairs, or “letters” of genetic code, to be matched against the billions of letters for known genes. Searching for similarities that can shed light on functional or evolutionary relationships, scientists routinely use BLAST to churn through and produce vast amounts of data. Everyday applications inclu

Researchers working with rats have zeroed in on the brain circuitry mechanism whose disruption contributes to the impulsive behavior seen in users of cocaine as well as other psychostimulant drugs. The same circuitry has been implicated in such disorders as schizophrenia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, wrote the researchers.

Yukiori Goto and Anthony A. Grace of the University of Pittsburgh described their findings in the July 21, 2005, issue of Neuron. In their studies

One puzzle in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research is why mice engineered to have the abnormal protein underlying the disease in humans show little pathology of the disease. Specifically, such mice are genetically altered to overproduce mutant human amyloid precursor protein (APP). It is this protein that, when clipped by enzymes, produces the amyloid beta (Ab) peptide that clusters into the amyloid plaque that clogs the brain and kills brain cells.

The clipping of APP produces t

Rounding up wayward cells and particles on a microscope slide can be as difficult as corralling wild horses on the range, particularly if there’s a need to separate a single individual from the group.

But now, a new device developed by University of California, Berkeley, engineers, and dubbed an “optoelectronic tweezer,” will enable researchers to easily manipulate large numbers of single cells and particles using optical images projected onto a glass slide coated with

Study holds hope for next generation hemophilia treatment

Researchers have doubled the potency of a protein that drives blood to clot, according to research to be published in the July 26 edition of Biochemistry. The study results may have profound implications for the treatment of hemophilia, the inherited blood disorder that causes easy or excessive bleeding in 30,000 Americans.

In most cases, hemophilia is caused by a lack of factor VIII, one of several proteins that

New research suggests that accumulation of amyloid-â peptides in cerebral blood vessels, as opposed to the brain itself, may be a more important pathological mediator of Alzheimer’s disease. Two independent yet related articles describe such findings in the August issue of The American Journal of Pathology. Both articles are highlighted on the Journal’s cover.

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of progressive dementia, affects an estimated 4.5 million Ame

If you’ve ever used a loofah in the shower, you’ve stirred up some stem cells. As the outer layer skin of sloughs off, stem cells in the dermis rush to repair and replace those buffed away.

Now imagine a tiny loofah that works in much the same way inside the corridors of the human heart. As it scrubs, it alerts heart stem cells to rush to the site of dying cells to begin renewal and repair of cardiomyocytes – cells that pump blood through the heart.

While a heart

In recent years, American hospitals have made significant improvements on standardized, evidence-based measures of clinical performance for several medical conditions, including heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia. But an editorial, published in the July 21 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, says it’s not clear how much effect these improvements in patient care have had on public health, especially in reducing morbidity and mortality. The editorial, authored by Patrick S. Roman